This invention relates to providing advertisements (ads) over a large network, and particularly for advertising over the Internet.
Along with other information, Internet information providers can provide ads to users in a number of forms, one of which is as a "banner" across an Internet page, often at the top of the page. A banner ad can have text and still or moving graphics, and typically serves as an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) link, such that the user is linked to another specified page if the user clicks on the banner. Some Internet sites are always associated with the same particular one or more banner ads; each time the site is accessed, the particular ad or ads are displayed along with the other information that is displayed (an access to a site or page is referred to as a "hit").
Rather than associate one or more particular banner ads with a page for every hit, banner ads can be sold in terms of frequency--a number of hits per day, particularly from sites that have a large number of hits per day. A system with a small number of different ads that are served (and thus displayed) an equal number of times can easily be envisioned. In this case, a list of ads is made and a pointer moves in a circular fashion to identify a next ad each time an ad is served. If the site has 10,000 hits in a day, four ads would each be served 2500 times per day.
Such a system would be difficult to manage and operate if the numbers of serves per day for the different ads were different, and particularly if they were different significantly and by non-integral ratios. Different advertisers may want substantially different numbers of hits; e.g., one advertiser may want 100,000 hits per day for 10 days, another advertiser may want 10,000 hits per day for only one day, and yet another may want 45,000 hits per day for a month. Another complication that occurs is that the number of hits can be approximated for a single day, but the number of hits can vary; if the number of hits increases on a particular day, an advertiser may want the ads distributed throughout the day so that not all ads are served early in the day. Alternatively, an advertiser may want a concentration or intensification of ads at particular times, perhaps in response to a profile of users, e.g., different times for children versus adults, or for people accessing the site from home versus work.
It would be desirable for a web site administrator that sells ads based on a number of hits per day to have an efficient way to cause the appropriate number of ads to be served and to be able to adapt to different situations in a flexible manner.